Living with strangers and othering: Surian refugees from the perspective of the Mardin people

As a result of internal conflicts in Syria that started in 2011, a significant part of the Syrian people had to take refuge in neighboring countries. The number of Syrians in Turkey has registered a total of 3 million 643 thousand 870 people as of August 2019. Thus, Syrian refugees constitute almost 5% of Turkey's population. A number of Syrians in Turkey are still living in refugee camps established by the government in various provinces. A significant portion of them live together with the locals outside the camps. Syrian refugees were initially accepted by the locals as mostly temporary guests. Syrian refugees in Turkey today started to become more permanent. Undoubtedly, this situation changes the relations between the local people and the foreigners. This is because the transition from hospitality to residence also makes it more likely for the foreigner to occasionally be declared a scapegoat on many issues by the local people and thus to encounter discriminatory discourses and behaviors. In this sense, exclusionary and discriminatory behaviors towards asylum seekers can become widespread. Therefore, it is important to examine how the process evolving from hospitality to permanent or resident has an impact on the local population and how Syrian asylum seekers are now welcomed from the perspective of the local population. In this context, the subject of the research is the tensions created by the Syrian refugees in the minds of the local people and the factors or dynamics that play a role in shaping the possible positive or negative perceptions of the local people towards the disadvantaged population. In other words, the central point of the research / thesis is the sociological evaluation of the manner in which the attitudes towards asylum seekers are reflected in concrete discourses and actions. In this context, it is aimed to examine whether the large number of negative news stories or experiences about asylum seekers lead to the formation of opposing position identities in the local population and thus a counter-group alienation. In this context, the city of Mardin, which is one of the settlements in the border region where the daily encounters and interactions between Syrian refugees and local people is high, was chosen as the universe of the study. The Syrian refugee population in Mardin constitutes 10.55% of the total population of Mardin. Mardin is the case seventh city where most Syrians living in Turkey in terms of its size within the total population. In the study, in-depth interviews were conducted through semi-structured interview form in accordance with qualitative methodology and also empirical data were obtained with participatory observation technique. In this study, where theoretical sampling and maximum diversity sampling techniques were used, demographic diversity was taken into consideration, and interviews were continued until sufficient data were obtained and field research was completed with a total of 36 participants. Therefore, the research includes the sociological evaluation of the perception of the local people towards the Syrian refugees and the manner in which the attitudes towards them are reflected to concrete discourses and actions on the basis of qualitative data. As a matter of fact, this research is important from the point of view of the indigenous people in terms of revealing the relations between foreign and indigenous in detail. In addition, this study will contribute to the prediction of relations in the future if Syrian asylum seekers become permanent in the long term.